i have always thought this, but gen-x brought it up. an AI cannot be totally independant of it's "creator" or programmer untill the programmer himself totally understands how the noodle in his head works. Gen-x is saying, how can you program a machine to do something that you yourself dont know how it works, such as how to make a decision on your own. a scientist cant program that into a machine if he doesn't understand what your brain is doing along the way to come up with your dicision. thats all, its just a basic concept. can you program anything you wanted in VB? no because you must learn those code words before you can use them right? same thing when you try to create an AI, you must know the "code words" in how to create a dicision before you can complete your program.